Balata under heavy attack

international | miscellaneous | other press Tuesday February 21, 2006 09:43 by Jon G

As of 2am Sunday morning, Balata is under heavy attack by the Israeli
military, terrorising and imprisoning the 30,000 residents in their homes.
Two helicopters, fifty armoured jeeps, tanks and bulldozers have
surrounded the camp, closing all entrances and imposing 24-hour 'curfew'.
The Balata youth took to the streets and continue to resist the invasion
with stones.
see www.balatacamp.net for updates and photos

Two teenagers have been confirmed killed, a home demolished and over
thirty injured. Two UNRWA schools have been transformed into temporary
bases, and tens of homes occupied throughout the camp.

The invading army have repeatedly targeted medical workers and ambulances
- on one occasion an ambulance was rammed from two sides by military jeeps
while carrying injured.

A number of men have been arrested, including Ahmed Abu Ras, a local
Al-Aqsa fighter. The house Abu Ras was found in, belonging to the Hamami
family, was bulldozed in an act of collective punishment. One seriously
wounded man was arrested from an ambulance and interrogated, before a
Palestinian ambulance was allowed to collect him again.

The two murdered teenagers, shot with live ammunition, were Mohammed Ahmad
Natur and Ibrahim Ahmad Sheikh Khalil, both 17.

There follow excerpts from the IWPS (International Women's Peace Service -
www.iwps-pal.org) report from Balata:
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20.02.06

There is only one ambulance left inside the camp. It will bring wounded
only to the edge of the camp, out of fear of not being allowed back in.
Wounded individuals are carried on stretchers to the entrance of the camp
and transported to Nablus hospitals. Normal ambulance traffic has come to
a complete halt.

In the morning an ambulance carrying an injured person and a woman in
complicated labor was ambushed by two jeeps. The jeeps drove into the
ambulance from both sides and shot at it. The soldiers forced the
ambulance to stand still for half an hour to use it as a shield against
youth throwing stones at them.

Around 1:00 pm two ambulances were held up by several jeeps. According to
the ambulance team they were detained for already 30 minutes and someone
with a bullet wound in the shoulder was beaten inside one of the
ambulances. The soldiers forced the ambulance personnel to undress his
wound, which had just stopped bleeding. The ambulance was held until the
family, with the help of the ambulance team and the IWPS volunteers,
brought his ID card. After his ID was checked, the ambulance continued its
way, only to be stopped by the next jeep on the road.

Around 1:30 pm the IWPS volunteers arrived inside Balata refugee camp on
foot, where they witnessed the shooting of two boys shot in the leg and
the side. One of them had a flesh wound and the other’s bone was crushed
by a bullet. A medical team and the IWPS volunteers ran two kilometers
with the two injured boys, because the ambulance that was carrying them
was not allowed to move.

Later, the IOF did not allow an ambulance transporting a boy with a rubber
bullet in his head to move. They were forced to carry the boy on foot.